


The Lure

by Parichan



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:06:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8242304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parichan/pseuds/Parichan
Summary: Sam gets up and closes the distance between them, lowering his voice and glancing instinctively around the room. “I keep… playing it back,” he says. “What I can remember. Now, it’s not totally clear or even mostly clear, but… there’s something off about the whole thing. Why didn’t he kill me, Nathan?”
In which Sam goes hurtling back through the past to make the same mistakes twice. Can he call them mistakes if they feel this good? Probably not.





	1. The Spark Ignited

“Oh no,” Nate says, backing away a little instinctively. “Oh no, Sam. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Okay, just-” Sam clasps Nate’s shoulder as he turns to leave- “just _listen_ to me, alright?” Sam sighs as Nate shrugs his shoulder away. He’s got that same, pained look in his eyes that draws on not-so-distant memories. After pacing the room back and forth he somewhat-settles against the window sill, worrying fingers along his brow. 

“This isn’t your mess, Nathan. Okay? It’s mine.” Sam almost closes the distance between them, but decides against it. “You’re not _in this_ anymore.” Nate chuckles to himself, morose. “You’re _not._ I promise you.”

“Okay. Okay, sure.” Nate nods, smiles, and the gesture drips with sarcasm. “Where should we shelve that most _sacred_ of promises? Up with Alcazar, the motorcycle-”

“I didn’t lift that bike. Not my fault it was _originally_ stolen…” Sam cuts his defence short. “We were _friends_ , alright? Before any of it happened, he had my back. He would’a died for me, Nate-”

“He _left_ you to die!” Nate says, raising his voice. It echoes around the bedroom. “ _I_ fought him, back there. _Killed_ him!”

“Yeah, and I’m telling you I don’t _buy it_.” Sam insists, his own voice starting to snarl with frustration. “And how do you know that, anyway?”

“Know what?” Nate asks, laughter lilting the frustration in his voice. “That his body’s somewhere on the bed of the Indian ocean-?”

“That he would’ve left me.” 

Nate stops. He tries to muster up a response, but it’s a question he’s wondered about himself in the past and he doesn’t have an answer. He flails for some words and comes up short. 

“Exactly,” Sam says, staring Nate down until he sighs and relents. Then he gets up and closes the distance between them, lowering his voice and glancing instinctively around the room. “I keep… playing it back,” he says. “What I can remember. Now, it’s not totally clear or even mostly clear, but… there’s something _off_ about the whole thing. Why didn’t he kill me, Nathan?”

“Stop it.”

“He wanted us to leave, _together_ , with bags of gold and all the glory. I’m sure of it. Oh, and by ‘us’, no offence, but I mean-”

“The two of you. Got it. Yeah, the sword to my throat kinda gave that one away. _No offence_ , but I don’t exactly want in on your little posse-”

“He knew I was alive under there,” Sam interrupts, and even though his voice is low it snaps with heat. “He told you so, right? If he wanted me dead I would’ve been- long before you got to me.” 

A silence cuts across the room, hooking the words and stringing them up, letting them ring through Nate’s ears as he works his mind through the doubt. His eyes flicker over Sam’s face, steely and sure.

“I’m not saying I wanna… ‘rekindle our friendship’. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this shit.” 

“Then we’ll leave it right here,” Nate says. Sam sighs, dissatisfied as he runs a hand through his thick hair. “It was a weird night. There were a lot of fumes.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” 

“Well _try-_ ”

“I _can’t_!” Sam’s voice rings around the room. Downstairs the laughter stops. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to raise my voice-”

“This conversation is over, Sam. Right now.” Nate makes for the door. “Need something to occupy your thoughts? I’m pretty sure Chloe’s got a job for you out in Barbados.”

“Wait,” Sam says, grabbing Nate’s forearm.

“ _No,_ Sam-”

“Four days ago, I got this message.” Sam reaches into his pocket with his other hand, fumbles around for his phone. “Remember that old history forum we used to burn through?”

“‘Relic Romp’,” Nate replies, instinctively.

“Yeah, well-” he holds the screen up to Nate, who scans the message. “User ID is-”

“‘ _Thomas Tew_ ’.” Nate says, voice weak, arms falling limp by his side. It’s a short message, takes him a second to read. What takes him a little longer is getting the words up and out of his throat. “ _I killed Avery, and Avery killed me.”_

 


	2. Before

“Hahaha!” Sam laughs, throwing his head back and opening his arms. The wind- still warm in the early hours of evening- whips around him. His shirt billows, contorting with the haphazard sway of the ocean gust. He opens his eyes to savour the view, drinking in the oranges and golds and the gulls speckling the vista. “Now _this_ ,” he says, closing his eyes again and drinking in the salty air. His voice runs a little hoarse, sprained with excitement. “ _This_ is what I’m talking about.”

The boat is small enough that Sam can feel the footsteps approaching on the deck, and soon he’s joined on the hull by his partner.

“I told you to never doubt me.” Sam turns toward the voice, because he can hear the smile in it and wants to _see_ it, too. “Or my wallet.” 

Sam smiles back, wide and breezy. “Thank you!” he says, clasping his hands and looking up at the sky. “To the Adler family fund.”

Rafe laughs. 

“And to you,” Sam continues, turning properly to face him. “For indulging me.” Their eyes flicker at each other, communicating the little things. Rafe nods and breaks line-of-sight, glancing down at his shoes before turning his gaze back to the sunset. 

“You know charity is a big thing in my family-”

“I will throw you off this boat.” 

Rafe laughs again, and Sam thinks it’s the most contagious thing he’s ever seen, because he catches himself laughing too.

“So,” Sam continues. “Shall we chart this thing to Panama?”

Rafe scoffs. “When Vargas finally drops the whole ‘but it’s illegal!’ bullshit.” His eyes surge with irritancy. “Same guy who beats his inmates to a pulp, worried about a little in-and-out job.”

“The beating of the inmates probably doesn’t feel that illegal. To him.” Sam sighs. “He’s not exactly breaking chain of command when he does that.”

“Yeah,” Rafe concurs. “Still a prick.”

Sam laughs. “Definitely a prick.” He roams his vision over Rafe, whose pale eyes seem to follow the whip of the churning ocean. He regrets bringing the job up, interrupting his calm.

“You know what we _need_ is something to wash down this view,” Sam continues, hopping down from the platform and reaching into the cooler. Just over the edge of the boat streams of tuna busy themselves through the current. After some rummaging- “Champagne?” he says, looking at Rafe with distaste as he gingerly holds the bottle by its cork.

“It’s a family boat,” Rafe says, shrugging. “Don’t complain, asshole. It tastes amazing.”

“No, no, see, this-” Sam starts, wiggling the bottle. “This is exactly why you need me.” There’s a light in his eyes. The corners of his mouth dance into a smirk. Rafe turns, back now resting against the edge of the boat, to fully face him. 

“Please, continue. I was starting to wonder why I bother.” 

Sam can see that Rafe's trying to be cool, here, so he steps back up onto the hull, leans his whole six-foot-three over Rafe’s five-eleven and thrusts the bottle into his hands. Peering down, he can see the small of Rafe’s back pressed against the rim of the boat. He leans his lips into Rafe’s waiting ear. 

“You need a little roughing,” Sam drips, slanting on the Boston accent. “Around the edges.” His hand snakes into Rafe’s hair. He can hear the beginnings of sharpness in Rafe’s breathing- subtle, suppressed, but audible. 

“Samuel-”

“Starting with this _hair_ ,” Sam says, laughing, resuming his usual volume as he ruffles his hand through the streamlined locks. He can feel the slight resistance of wax as he unbinds the careful mould. Rafe pushes him away, face blotched with patches of red.

“ _Fuck_ you,” he spits, smoothing it back down as best he can. “Don’t get used to the view, because you’re never-”

But Sam crushes his lips against Rafe’s and steals the protests right out of his mouth with a searing kiss, iron-hot and all-consuming. His tongue makes easy work of Rafe’s supple mouth, coaxing it open. He laughs into the kiss as Rafe whimpers, a sound that’s even sweeter because he knows it’s completely involuntary. 

“Never what?” Sam breathes, lips brushing Rafe’s as he forms the words. His thumb strokes across the smooth plane of Rafe's cheek. “Never what?”


	3. Bad Habits

_Click, click._

_Click._

_Click, click, click-_

“This fucking thing!” Sam curses under his breath, inspecting the graze on his thumb from the lighter switch. Behind him, from the house, comes the incessant blast of shitty pre-teen pop he’s come to despise in the space of two hours. 

_Click, click, click. Click-_

“Yes!” he says, unintentionally loudly, as flame springs up from the device. He spins his head around to check he’s still alone. Then he drags, deep, from the cigarette. They’re cheap, a random brand he found at the local beach off-license. He’d thrown out all his nicest stuff, posh cigars and glossy engraved lighters. He was supposed to have quit. But now his eyes roll back with the hot friction in his throat; the deep, rolling satisfaction as he holds in the smoke. His hands feel like his again when they stop shaking. 

_Click._

It only takes one this time, one tiny motion to end his long wait. Elena’s gonna kill him. He doesn’t care. It’s not his marriage, after all. He’s only here for Nate, and Cassie, and because the job in Cuba had come to an end just in time for her birthday. They hadn’t technically lied in the letter. They weren’t, at the time of writing, working a job. Samuel _had_ been clean for 12 months. He looks down at the cigarette between his fingers, half-way gone and burning fast. He’s surprised at how little regret he feels, how whatever small pangs of guilt are overridden by pure satisfaction. Most of his regret, if he’s honest, is directed at his _stupid_ idea to toss his Gurkha Black Dragons. The thought of the perfect, thousand-dollar cigars lying in a trash-heap makes him considerably more uncomfortable than this lapse of will.

Was it three, now, or four? He’s lost count, and he’s grateful for the barbecue because he’s generating a lot of by-smoke. He doesn’t want Cassie to see, not so much because of the act itself (she’s bound to see it at some point), but more because it betrayed a weakness of his and he _wasn't weak_. He just liked a cigarette. 

He reaches into his pocket for his phone, blindly tapping in the passcode and revisiting the same site for what feels like the hundredth time today. He doesn’t even have to type in the url. His web browser opens up on the same page he left it. 

_It has to be him_ , he thinks, running through the same internal dialogue for the umpteenth time. _No one else knows. No one else on this planet would know. It was the three of us on that ship-_

But _Nadine_. The thought enters his mind and throws him for a loop. It could be Nadine. She’d love to screw Sam around, especially once she found out he was alive. He’d have to come up with a test, something only Rafe would know-

“Sam!” Elena calls, from the house. He snaps his head around to see if she’s been watching, but she’s busying herself with plates at the counter. Thank god. He’s not really in the mood for another intervention. He blunts his cigarette and pockets the pack, which feels significantly lighter than before. The phone gets buried in the same pocket.

“Hey!” Nate says, patting him on the back as he enters back into the house. He leans up to Sam’s ear. “ _I’m going crazy_.” Sam laughs, but pulls away for fear of his brother catching the smell of smoke. 

“You asked for this life,” Sam says, patting his brothers shoulder. “Justin Bieber and all.”

“Justin Bieber?” Nate asks, laughing. “How out-of-touch are you? Jesus. He stopped being relevant like, what, _ten_ years ago?”

“Yeah, well, sorry I’m not as dedicated to teen tabloids as you.” He ruffles Nate’s hair. “Elena called?”

“Yeah. We’re cutting the cake, I think-” he pauses midway and groans. “God, they can’t be playing the same song _again_.”

“Hey, woah, it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend around your brother. We both know this is your favourite-”

“ _Uncle Sam!_ ” Sam is interrupted by the tight wrap of arms around his waist. He looks down to see a familiar mop of hair, glasses slanted against his torso. “I feel like I haven’t seen you all day! My friends Ashley and Lynne, they want to talk to you.”

“Wait, wait. _He_ gets a fan-club?”

“Uh,” Cassie starts, deadpan. “He’s way cooler than you, dad.”

“He thought Justin Bieber was current!”

“Baby-girl,” Sam interrupts, crouching down to get her at eye-level. “I’d love to meet them. At the table, all right? I’ve just gotta talk to your dad first.” Cassie scowls, but ends it with a smile.

“At the table. Okay.”

Sam smiles, watching as she bounds back off to the living room. 

“You’ve gotta talk to me?” Nate asks, rounding on him. “Haven’t we had enough of that for one week?” He looks intently at Sam, whose eyes flit down to his shoes. 

“I can’t leave this alone.”

“Oh _god._ Can’t we do this later?”

“Okay, look,” Sam starts, pulling Nate over to the side of the room. “You thought it was weird, too. I know you thought it was weird.”

“You’re right.” Sam sighs in relief. “I _did_. So I thought about it. _Nadine Ross_ , Sam. She saw it all too.”

“No, see, I thought the exact same thing. All we have to do is come up with a _test_. Something only Rafe would get-”

“ _‘We_ ’?” Nate laughs. “There is no _we_ , here, Sam.” His voice sounds desperate. “He’s dangerous. He’s unhinged. He’s got a lot of money. That is if he’s even alive, which, by the way, I still don’t believe.” He implores Sam with worried eyes. “If you do this, it’s on _you_.”

“Nate, c’mon-”

“Look _around_ , Sam,” he tries, pleading. “Kids. Cake. Shitty music. You’re right. This _is_ the life I chose.”

“This is important, okay? If he’s alive, he could come after us. After _you,_ and this family.”

“It’s been thirteen years since the last sign of him. If he wanted me dead, I’d know about it by now.”

“Boys!” Elena calls again, laying the cake down on the table. “Get over here!” 

“Coming!” Nate calls. He pauses on his way back to the table to implore Sam once again. “You said this wasn't my mess,” he says, looking Sam straight in the eyes. Sam averts them. "If you do this, it’s because _you want to."_

Everyone gathers around the cake. Sam's fingers twitch for a cigarette.


	4. The Hook

“ _Sam._ Don’t fall asleep on me.”

But it’s so hard not to. The room is hazy; cream walls drip with filtered sunlight. Sam’s skin glides over silk sheets as he reaches around for Rafe’s waist. 

“Mmm…” he rumbles, resting his lips on the familiar crown of dark-blonde hair. He breathes in, deep, as he kisses it. “How does your hair smell exactly like these pillows?”

“Because I slept on one, maybe?” Rafe quips. “Creep.”

“Hey, hey,” Sam half-protests, still waking up. “How are you already this wound-up?” He laces his fingers between Rafe’s, marvelling silently at the pristine condition of his nails. 

“Do I ever wind down?” Rafe asks. He settles into the dip between Sam’s broad pectorals. 

“Sometimes,” Sam replies. “When I’m lucky.” He closes his eyes and settles back into the pillow. Rafe’s fingers move up to trace the birds on Sam’s neck. 

“Why did you get this?” he enquires, soft. Sam flits his eyes open. 

“Why?” he repeats, mulling the question over. “Isn’t it obvious?” 

“A little,” he concedes. Sam laughs. “But I want to hear it from you.” He lifts his gaze to look at Sam, who sighs before he answers.

“ _Freedom_ ,” he says, tasting the word as is leaves his mouth. He smiles. “Turned out to be pretty prophetic.” 

Rafe settles back into Sam’s chest, seemingly satisfied with the answer. His voice, sweet and thick with feeling, breaks the long silence that follows.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” 

It makes Sam’s heart swell; his throat thickens. The breath in his lungs catches. He knows he might actually cry if he pauses to think about the last thirteen years. 

“Sam?”

“Shut up,” he says, soft. _It’s not Rafe’s fault. He had no idea_. “Just… shut up, okay?”  He rolls onto his front, places a forearm on either side of Rafe and leans their lips together. One of Rafe's hands immediately reaches up for Sam’s broad shoulder; the other tangles in his thick hair. Rafe’s back arches up as the kiss intensifies, up off the mattress to press their torsos tight against each other. Sam’s always loved Rafe in these moments, receptive and open and not such an asshole. His thighs, sore from last night’s _activities,_ clench around Sam’s hips. 

“That’s more like it,” Sam croons, siphoning a stray strand of hair from Rafe’s face. His light eyes are cloudy, half with sleep and half with want. Sam lets their eyes lock for a few moments, until the hand in his hair pulls him down for another kiss. It’s mornings like these that keep him coming back; moments like these where he gets special access to Rafe’s behind-the-scenes. 

“Why don’t you just stay?” Rafe mumbles, breaking the kiss and turning his gaze sidewards. “He can wait another day.” 

Sam laughs lightly, taking Rafe’s face in one hand and angling him back to lock eyes again. Then he slides a practiced hand down gym-cut abs, teasing Rafe’s taut skin with a feathery touch. He hums in approval when Rafe’s face screws up with pleasure, leaning down to kiss his throat as he whines. 

“ _Just like that_ ,” Sam breathes, wrapping a hand around Rafe and watching as his entire body convulses with pleasure. His breathing is sharp in Sam’s ear; teeth find his lobe and tug not-so-gently. Sam’s good with his hands- _great_ with them- and as he puts them to work he savours the sight of Rafe’s flushed face, his parted lips, his knuckles- blanching with strain as his hands clench in the sheets.

“ _Sam_ ,” Rafe whispers, like a mantra. “Mm- I’m gonna-”

“I know, baby,” Sam croons, flicking his thumb over Rafe’s head. “That’s it…”

Rafe yanks him down for an open-mouthed kiss as he comes, legs tightening like a vice grip around his waist. It's the fourth- fifth- in the last 12 hours, and Rafe's body shudders with exhausted pleasure as the orgasm rips through him. When it subsides Sam settles onto his back, pulling Rafe’s limp body to rest on top of him. He listens as Rafe’s heavy breathing gives into deeper, quieter intakes. He doesn’t bother with his own- albeit uncomfortable- hardness, not wanting to disturb the position they’d settled into. He craves a cigarette, _bad_ , but wills himself back to sleep. _It can wait,_ he thinks, in an attempt to soothe the urge. _It can all wait_.

“Tomorrow,” Rafe mumbles, and Sam jumps a little because he was sure the younger had drifted off to sleep. “Go back tomorrow.” 


End file.
